No Resolutions, Just Back-eyed Peas

I won't be making any resolutions on New Year's Day but I will be making black-eyed peas. I grew up in a family that was not in general superstitious, but which held firmly to the belief that it was necessary to eat black-eyed peas on New Year's day to assure luck and prosperity throughout the coming year. Sometimes they were part of a bigger meal and sometimes it was just black-eyed peas and corn bread, but there were alway black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. The only part of the black-eyed peas I liked was the foil wrapped coins that were thrown into the pot to assure prosperity. I became an expert at getting my serving from the bottom of the pot where there were the most coins to be found.

Having been forced to suffer through eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day every new year of my childhood, I felt it was only right to force my children to do the same. I did, and we still do, forgo the coins in the pot.....taking a child who has swallowed a quarter to the hospital doesn't seem like a very lucky way to start the year. My kids never much liked them, but have tolerated the custom so we will be having our final celebration of this holiday season on Saturday when we all get together to choke down some black-eyed peas. Lots of corn bread and maybe a ham and some macaroni and cheese will make it all good.

I figure with all the luck and prosperity I will get from eating the black-eyed peas, I don't really need to make any resolutions.

Does your family have any New Year's traditions?

Whew! That Was Fun

Whew!

Image from Google Images

From all dressed up on Christmas Eve,

to Santa hats and pajamas on Christmas morning,

 

it was a very fun Christmas.

Most of my pictures are a jumble of kids and wrapping paper like this one of everyone opening new pajamas on Christmas Eve.

Even Dodger is exhausted from all the excitement.

Now it is time to eat leftovers and take down the Christmas tree.

I hope everyone is getting rested after enjoying a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas Greeting

Christmas comes

But once a year

And when it comes

It brings good cheer

The reason that

It brings good cheer

Is that it comes

But once a year.

Suppose it happened

once a week.

I'd be too tired

to write or speak.

But struggling with it

One time yearly

I've still got strength

to say sincerely

Merry Christmas

I received this Christmas greeting from a friend who gave me permission to share it. 

I love a nice honest sentiment. 

Freewheeling Friday

Woo hoo, it's Friday, and I'm once again full of little thoughts to empty out of my head into a multi-tasking Freewheeling Friday.

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Image from Google Images

I usually try to do my best to ignore the whole getting older thing, but this week it kind of slapped me up the side of the head, or to be more exact, right in the mouth. I had to have a tooth pulled. I tried to avoid it, but after 2 root canals, root surgery and lots of money, they said it had to come out. It is (or was) a back tooth and will soon have a shiny new implant in it's place so I'm not quite as tooth-impaired as the picture above, but I sure felt like it for a day or so this week.

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In a departure from showing imperfect pictures of my grandkids and my dog, I want to show a picture of my imperfect angel. She has been on top of every Christmas tree of my life and on top of my parent's trees before I was born. She got a new dress sometime in the '80s, but her wings are the same one's she got when someone rang a bell. Her face is a little cracked, but whose isn't when they have been around as long as she has?  (As far as I know, she still has all of her own teeth).

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sNOw

We have usually shoveled (okay, Doc has usually shoveled) about two feet of snow by this time in December, but this year there has been no shoveling because we have had no snow. Right here in the middle of Colorado...no snow, so it was fun to wake up this morning to at least a little dusting. It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, which reminds me......................

My 8 year old grandaughter, Hope, is playing the little girl who doesn't believe in Santa in It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas, an updated musical version of Miracle on 34th Street at a local theater. She has had several performances with two more to go this weekend. She loves the singing and dancing and knows all of her lines and everyone else's. It is a great story of faith and believing and has left me with no doubt that Santa is real.

Speed Decorating

You can't beat a team of six kids for getting a Christmas tree decorated in record time. Even with one of them on crutches with a broken foot, my grandkids did a spectacular and speedy job of getting my tree decorated.

Even the little ones were sure to select just the right ornament to hang.

The tree decorating went very fast, but getting everyone in place for a picture in front of the tree took a little longer.

It's never "perfect" but to me it is a favorite picture of my grandkids each year in all their wild and crazy normalness.

A fun one from last year,

and the year before.

Beck didn't do much decorating but he enjoyed watching all the activity.



My tree won't win any awards for design. It is a little bottom heavy in the front as a result of two very enthusiastic 2 year old decorators. I feel so fortunate to be able to share this activity with my family every year I think I will (mostly) leave it that way.

Sundays In My City

To participate in Sundays In My City visit Unknown Mami here

My small town (about 20,000) doesn't have a lot of excitement to share, but recently on a trip to the library I saw some things that brought back to me the special pleasures of living in my small town.

Free carriage rides around the downtown area which had just been fully decorated for the holiday season.

Our small town's "Winter Skate", a skating rink filled with families on a beautiful Saturday afternoon enjoying skating, music and hot chocolate.

A statue erected in honor of a town "character" who rode his bike around town picking up trash and bringing small gifts and good cheer to people, all day everyday. He died about 2 years ago when he was hit by a car when he was picking up trash on the side of the road. The statue was created with funds collected in jars in all the stores around town.

I got an especially warm feeling of neighbors helping neighbors seeing people carrying boxes and boxes of food that they had collected for the food bank run by a small local church.

No, it is not big city excitement, but sometimes the little pleasures of a small town can be fun too.

If This Doesn't Give You Some Christmas Spirit..........

Does everyone have one of these......a really awful picture with Santa? At 3 or 4 I was apparently not too thrilled with the idea of sitting on the jolly ol' guy's lap., or maybe the strap on that hat was just a little too tight.

I hope you are laughing with me, not at me.

Christmas Will Be Just Fine

Image from Google Images

From what I have been seeing on many blogs lately it seems that we are full on into the holiday season. Some people have had their house fully and beautifully decorated since the day after Thanksgiving. Others are suffering some angst about not feeling enough of the spirit of Christmas or feeling stressed about the decorating, shopping, baking or Christmas card sending that they need to do.

I think I have plenty of Christmas spirit, I just haven't done much with it yet. I have done a little shopping, I have bought some Christmas cards but none are mailed. I have carried boxes of Christmas decorations up from the basement, but they are still sitting in boxes in the living room. Doc just informed me that he is going to wait a few days before he puts up the outside decorations. That's okay with me. It seems that age and time have given me something of a lassiez-faire attitude about all the "must do" things that come with the season.

I will have the house decorated by the time my grandkids come to decorate my tree next week-end. I will have plenty of food and drink for the 20 or 30 people who will be here on Christmas Eve. I will have gifts for everyone on my list. Whatever I don't get done, we will do without. It won't all be perfect, but it will be fun and it will be filled with the spirit of the season.